Control of objectives

[Albert Herring]

Playing the early stages of the long game as France, single player, I have Hanoi as an objective. It is at colony status with a completed fort, 100% military control, CP 80 or so, railway, some developments, and a reasonably happy population showing no signs of rebellion. However, it appears that I need to keep a field unit there in order to get the prestige points for the objective - if I move it out, the F10 screen shows it as held by rebels and one of the mouseovers. Conversely, a miserable expeditionary brigade squatting in a jungle in Bassam dying of supply loss, with minimal CP and no military control (still at peace with the Ashanti), gave me the points for the objective. This seems .... a little counterintuitive.

Also, on allocation of objectives, the game has given me Tamanrasset, even though that is in an unexplored bit of the map - that seems a little strange (allied to the B screen mouseover suggesting I build gold mines in an as-yet unexplored area).

I've got to 1857 and there appears to have been no Crimean War - is that just running a little late or can the AI avoid it completely?

Running 1.03d, game started with 1.03c

[Jim-NC]

The game does give you objectives on occasion that you haven't explored yet. It checks a % to determine which objectives you get, but doesn't check wether you can see it or not. Believe it or not, as France, you start with some CP in certain regions you haven't explored yet, thus the game "knows" that there is gold there, and that you have some CP/MC, and as you need gold at this point, so you get a message saying to build a gold field there.

Did the events fire to get a CB between Russia/Ottomans and Russia worked out a deal? or did no CB/tension raising events fire? Russia doesn't have to go to war (the same way Austria doesn't have to go to war after Italy's 1859 provocations). The AI doesn't always go to war, and thus there may be no war. You would have received a CB back in 1850 or 1851 most likely, but there may not have been a war.

[Albert Herring]

I don't recall receiving a CB (although there's plenty of scope for missing stuff in the event list, which is a fairly rubbish bit of user interface); I saw the usual ones between Russia and Turkey over Dobrudja. but I think they must have worked it out over the Jerusalem thing. No problem, doesn't seem as though there's much to be gained from fighting Russia anyway.

[loki100]

I don't recall receiving a CB (although there's plenty of scope for missing stuff in the event list, which is a fairly rubbish bit of user interface); I saw the usual ones between Russia and Turkey over Dobrudja. but I think they must have worked it out over the Jerusalem thing. No problem, doesn't seem as though there's much to be gained from fighting Russia anyway.

as far as I know the CB is only given to Russia and the Ottomans not to the UK et al. So the 'Crimean War' as such can only happen if you had a defensive alliance with the Ottomans.

[Sir Garnet]

There's nothing as sweeping in scope as invading and occupying most of Russia (while waiting for the Turks to make a peace). It also gets you the biggest and most experienced army in the world thanks to fighting both the regulars and the partisans. Napoleon III succeeding where Napoleon I failed - some nice laurels for that, if not happiness at home.

[Egg Bub]

A warning from experience: don't enter the Crimean war as France if you are expecting it to be like the one in real life. The Russian army will not experience any logistical problems and will crush you with stacks of 500,000-1,000,000 men, unless you too have an unrealistically large army. Playing as GB I noticed random attacks on my west African colonies as well, so you might not want to leave them unguarded if you value the buildings there. Either that or put navies in the adjacent bits of ocean to deal with these.

Of course, I may just be rubbish at playing this game , but when I landed a force of circa 50,000 men at Varna (like the British did in real life), I found myself fighting a seriously tough enemy. I should note that in my game, France did not participate (so GB might not either) and the Ottomans made peace within months, thus leaving me in the bizarre situation of fighting the Russians alone yet being able to retreat into Turkish territory every so often to resupply with impunity.

With regard to potential gains, I believe you can liberate the Crimean buffer states if Russia has annexed these. Good luck.

[Sir Garnet]

Yes, the fruits of victory were forcing Russia to liberate various border states. Their navy was almost gone after years of hunting them down in and out of MTBs. The war spread from the Black Sea north past Moscow and finally to St Petersburg whose arduous capture was necessary to bring the Russians to terms. Those sizable partisan units that pop up and even seize towns are a considerable pacification problem.